Although burning fat and calories is not the biggest indicator of a good workout, it can certainly make a difference when working to achieve the deficit needed for healthy weight loss. Yoga is well known for strengthening and toning the muscles for a more mindful approach to fitness, but that’s not to say that it can’t also be an asset for achieving fat loss and feeling great in your body.
We spoke with VFit Studio’s head yoga instructor Shari Roberson Belmarez, ACSM certified personal trainer, E-RYT 500, YACEP, and certified yoga therapist who outlined her top four favorite moves for increasing the fat burning capabilities of your workout so you can optimize your practice and integrate yoga into your weight loss routine.
Sun Salutation
First and foremost, Belmarez notes that most yoga poses will increase fat burn and build strength as they all require resilience in holding difficult poses for an extended period of time. With sun salutation in particular your body will be especially challenged to stabilize, resulting in an increase in calories exerted. “The sun salutation builds up heat and energy, and if you do multiple of these in a row you're definitely going to feel it,” she says.
How to do it: “We start standing in mountain pose, shoulders down and back, reach the arms up, exhale, forward fold down to the ground. Inhale, lift up halfway. As you exhale, we're going to plant the hands into the ground, step back and chaturanga down. Inhale, lift up or cobra, exhale back into a downward facing dog. From the downward facing dog, we would bend our knees, we can walk our feet forward, we can step our feet forward, or we can jump our feet forward. And rise back up, we can raise our hands up like a mountain. We can rise to stand or we can sink in a chair,” explains Belmarez. If you want to get an extra burn out of this pose, lift up your heels while holding chair pose to challenge your calves as well.
Warrior Flow
Flows require your body to move through a number of difficult poses, thereby challenging your muscles and increasing fat burn. The warrior pose will help to build strength in your legs, moving the distribution of weight and engaging different muscles as you move through the flow.
How to do it: “Taking a warrior flow from that vinyasa–we can inhale, right leg rises knee to nose, stepping through, inhale, arms rise up, lunge–so the back heel is lifted. Inhale on the lunge, exhale and open to the side–front right knee is bent–warrior two. Inhale, reaching forward, flip the right palm, exhale, reach the palm back–reverse warrior. Then inhale, right arm comes on to the right thigh, left arm reaches forward–extended side angle or extended warrior. You can also reach both arms forward. Then from there, lift the left heel to rotate back around to lunge, plant the hands down,” explains Belmarez. She also adds that from this flow you can move back into sun salutation, pairing moves together to add difficulty to your workout.
Down Dog to Dolphin
This is another strength building move that not only challenges the stamina of your shoulders and arms, but also engages the entirety of your core as well. You don’t have to do ab specific exercises to achieve a toned core, but trying moves that utilize the muscles of your stomach will certainly help to strengthen and thereby build up that area. “Bring in some poses that just build strength, so one thing I like to do is go from down dog to dolphin several times in a row,” says Belmarez.
How to do it: “We're going to start to pull the navel in, press back through the heels, then start to bend the elbows down and try to bring the elbows all the way down to the ground. And then press back up through the elbows. Maybe I can't bring the elbows all the way to the ground, so I bend the elbows a little bit and push them back up, eventually trying to come all the way down into dolphin and all the way back up into down dog,” explains Belmarez. Targeting your upper body and challenging your arm strength, this pose will not only build up your muscles but increase your flexibility as well.
